by David Bishop
“You got seven kinds of snot kicked out of you,” Bescheiden sneered triumphantly.
“Exactly,” Kurt agreed, enjoying the look of surprise on the craven coward’s face. “That’s what happens unless we work as a team, supporting one another. Together we can reclaim this place for the decent people of Marienburg. But if we stand divided, we’ll be crushed.”
Raufbold stepped boldly forward from among the other watchmen, his usual cocky arrogance having recovered from the earlier humiliation. “I thought we were supposed to watch and learn. All we saw was you being made a fool, forced to jump out a window to save your sorry neck.”
Kurt bit his tongue to stop himself replying harshly, knowing his accuser was right, no matter how painful that realisation might be. Hubris was never easy to accept, but Kurt was determined not to let the others see how much his pride had been hurt, how much his confidence had been shaken. He needed help and advice, someone he already trusted to help him win round this motley collection of reprobates-and he knew exactly where to find that someone. “I promise you all this: before the end of the day, that building will be a watch station once more.” Again they laughed at him, jeering at his boastful words. Kurt let them laugh, waiting for their hilarity to fade before speaking once more. “I’m going to get help. Until I return, I want you all to remain here and make sure none of the people inside the tavern leave. They must be held accountable for their actions in attacking members of the watch. An example needs to be made of them.”
“Why in the name of Sigmar’s sausage should we stay?” Bescheiden demanded.
Kurt smiled. “If any of you is missing when I return, you’ll be charged with desertion of duty and sentenced to twenty-eight days on Rijker’s Isle-and you all know how the inmates there like to treat convicted members of the watch, don’t you?” The men grumbled and muttered under their breath. Watchmen were considered fair game on Rijker’s Isle, guards looking the other way when the inmates gathered to extract some measure of vengeance for having been jailed by the Black Caps. Again, Kurt waited for silence before continuing. “I was promised my recruits would be the best of the best Marienburg has to offer, but it looks like I’ve been sent the worst of the worst. Other stations have dumped you here with me, so we’re stuck with each other. Either we make this work, or else we all suffer the consequences. Think about that while I’m gone.” Jan Woxholt was enjoying his third ale of the afternoon when Kurt strode into the Dancing Pirate. The warm, well-kept tavern was popular with halflings from nearby Kleinmoot ward, making the big, blond and bearded figure at the rear of the taproom all the more obvious. Kurt strode across the half-empty tavern and stood in front of Jan’s table. “Still drinking Hoornweg’s Old Inscrutable, I see.”
“How did you…?”
Kurt ran a finger across his top lip. “The ale stains the bottom of your moustache black.”
Jan wiped his whiskers dry with the back of one hand, while offering the other in friendship. Kurt shook it gratefully and sat down opposite him. “I hear you’ve gone up in the world,” Jan said. “Watch captain, no less-and given your own station, too.”
“How did you-” Kurt began.
“I notice things too,” Jan interrupted. “And I hear more. You were a fool to take the job.”
“It’s the chance of a lifetime-”
“It’s a chance to get yourself killed,” Jan insisted, “you and anybody else stupid enough to get involved. Everyone knows Three Penny Bridge station is cursed, Kurt. You may not believe in such things, but I do. I knew the last captain there, Joost Holismus-he was a good man, until Chaos claimed him, one of the best thief-takers in all of Marienburg. Don’t let that place claim you, too.”
Kurt smiled. “I take it that’s a roundabout way of saying you won’t help me.”
Jan took a deep drink from his tankard. “You haven’t asked me yet.”
“Will you help?”
Jan drained his tankard dry and stood up, getting ready to leave. “I’m sorry, Kurt-really, I am.”
Kurt grabbed Jan’s right wrist. “Why? I’ve never known you to be afraid of anything. You saved me from myself more times than I can remember when I first joined the Watch. Without you, I’d never have survived a week in this city. I need your help again, Jan.”
“I’m retired,” the big man said quietly. “Those days are behind me.”
“They don’t have to be-”
“I’m scared!” Jan hissed, ripping his arm free of Kurt’s grasp. “Is that what you wanted to hear? I’m scared of that place-and you should be too. I’m one of the few men in the Watch who has stayed alive long enough to retire. I saved sufficient coins to keep me in ale and sausages for a good few years yet-more than long enough. All I want is a quiet life, Kurt. Can’t you leave me be, let me enjoy my last days in peace?”
Kurt stood, moving to block his old friend’s exit. “Is that what you want? Truly?”
Jan couldn’t meet his gaze. “It will have to do.”
“It doesn’t need to,” Kurt insisted. “I’m offering you the chance to make a difference, to change the way things are in this city for the better. Isn’t that worth the risk?”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then make me understand!”
“I can’t.” Jan folded his beefy arms and glared at his former protйgй. “Now, are you going to let me pass, or do I have to pitch you out of a window into the canal?”
Kurt couldn’t help smiling. “You heard about that too?”
“I told you-I notice things, and I hear more.” Jan stepped closer, his face like stone. “Well?”
Kurt stared into his friend’s eyes, searching for answers. “I can’t believe you won’t help.”
“If it was any other place in the city, I would-but not there. Not now.” Jan sighed. “You’d be better off rejoining the army than trying to reclaim Three Penny Bridge.”
“I can’t do that, and I can’t go home to Altdorf either-not without proving myself here first. This is my chance to do that,” Kurt said.
“Then you haven’t got much choice, have you? You’ll have to find a way of drinking from this poisoned chalice the commander has given you-but you’ll have to do it without me.”
“I never thought I’d see you like this, Jan-never thought you’d be afraid of anything. I guess I was wrong.” Kurt stood aside to let his friend pass, but called out as Jan reached the tavern door. “If you change your mind, you know where I’ll be, don’t you?” The burly blond man paused, but did not reply before marching out of the taproom, the heavy door swinging shut behind him. As Kurt strode back to Three Penny Bridge, he went over and over the conversation with Jan in his mind. The retired sergeant had the stamina of a bull and a physique to match the strongest of stevedores, along with a beguiling honesty and rare courage. I could have done with a few more men like him at my side in the army, Kurt had often thought. How dearly he wished Jan would join him at the new station. He hadn’t realised how much he missed their conversations, the presence of the big man at his side, two friends shoulder to shoulder against all ills and evils. Taking back Three Penny Bridge would be challenge enough with Jan as his right-hand man. Without Jan, Kurt doubted he had any chance of succeeding as acting captain. It was enough to drive any man to drink, but that was how he’d ended up in Marienburg, a drunken wreck with a one-way ticket to the end of the Reik.
Kurt was accosted by a hefty woman while he marched across Stoessel. She stepped into his path, her considerable bulk blocking the passageway. “I need to make a confession,” the wide-hipped woman whispered.
“Find yourself a priest.”
“I need to confess a crime,” she insisted, her eyes glancing up at his black cap.
“Fine,” Kurt said, folding his arms impatiently. “What’s your name?”
“Gerta Gestehen.”
“And what crime did you commit?”
“Theft. I picked the pocket of an important citizen.”
Kurt
looked her up and down, deciding she was the least likely pickpocket he’d ever encountered. There was more to this woman than met the eye-a lot more, judging by her size. “What did you steal?”
Gerta stared at him as if he was mad. “I’m not going to tell you that.”
“You want to confess a crime, but you don’t want to tell me the details?” Kurt frowned. Something was nagging at the back of his thoughts. He knew he’d never met this woman before, but she seemed all too familiar. “Have you got someone who can speak on your behalf? A husband, perhaps?”
“My Engelbert’s still on Rijker’s Isle, where people like you sent him so unjustly three years ago. But Engelbert is not my husband, he’s my lover.”
“I see. So, whose pocket did you pick, precisely?”
“I didn’t ask his name, but he had pointy ears, long blond hair and thin, delicate features.”
“Sounds like an elf.”
Gerta smiled. She moved closer, so her magnificent bosom pressed against Kurt. “If I stole from an elf, would that get me sent to Rijker’s Isle too? Perhaps I could share a cell with Engelbert.”
Kurt sighed in exasperation as realisation struck home. “What did you say your name was?”
“Gerta-Gerta Gestehen.”
“Also known as Gerta the Blurter?”
The obese woman took a step back, her face stricken with horror. “I resent that name, and all it implies! I’ve never made a false confession in my life!”
Kurt rolled his eyes. Gerta was all but a legend among the Black Caps, a serial confessor who would claim the blame for almost any crime in the vain hope it would get her reunited with her alleged lover. “Confessing to picking the pocket of an elf-isn’t that going over the top, even for you, Gerta?”
She scowled at him. “You’re saying you don’t believe me?”
“I’m saying you’re wasting my time. Waste any more of it and-”
“You’ll send me to Rijker’s?” she panted, her eyes lighting up.
“-and I’ll have you spend next Marktag in the stocks outside the Suiddock fish market. Got it?”
“But I don’t like fish,” Gerta protested.
“All the more reason to stay away from me,” Kurt snapped. “Now, move!” He pushed past the still protesting woman, ignoring her cries for attention.
“But I can even describe what the elf was wearing,” Gerta called after him. “He had a deep green tunic, and his skin was like alabaster. I heard him whispering something under his breath!”
Kurt kept going, eager to get away from her deranged rantings. He was still fuming when he strode straight into Bescheiden, a few streets from Three Penny Bridge. “You’ll pay tuppence and a sword for leaving your post,” Kurt promised, “unless you’ve a good explanation.”
The weasel-faced man blanched at the threat, but stood his ground. “I came looking for you. A body’s been found near the bridge, half in and half out of the Bruynwarr.”
“So? Floaters turn up all the time in this city,” Kurt sighed. “Families too cheap or too poor to pay for a mausoleum plot wait until dark, before lobbing the dearly departed off one of the bridges.”
Bescheiden nodded. “Yes, but this one’s an elf-high born, from the sounds of it, important. He’s been murdered and he didn’t go quietly, according to what people are saying.”
“An elf?” Kurt’s mind rebelled at the coincidence. “Do you know what clothes he was wearing?”
“A deep green tunic, I think.”
Kurt closed his eyes and ran a rough hand across the stubble on his jaw line. So, Gerta’s unlikely tale might have actually had some tiny fraction of truth hidden buried within her delusions and lies. It was doubtful she had slain the elf, but the serial confessor might have seen who did-and Kurt had just ignored her wild claims. This day was going from bad to worse, and far too quickly for his liking. The humiliation at headquarters, having to take evasive action to survive his foolhardy attempt at reclaiming the station and Jan’s refusal to help-now this. Elves had their own enclave within Marienburg and stayed there whenever possible, not mixing with the humans, halflings and other races found on the city’s streets and waterways. Seeing an elf outside their quarter was a rarity. Most citizens of Marienburg could go their whole lives without catching sight of one.
Little was known about the elves, beyond the fact they were long-lived and had abilities beyond those of mortal men. The murder of an elf was all but unheard of, and certainly had not happened outside the walls of the elf quarter during Kurt’s time in Marienburg. Such a crime would doubtless create a political firestorm among the city’s ruling elite and no end of trouble for everyone involved, until the culprit was found and delivered to the elves for punishment. There was only one thing that could yet rescue this situation for Kurt. “The body-where was it found?”
“Riddra, at the bottom of the steps between the Gentlemen’s Club and the Stevedores and Teamsters’ Guild headquarters,” Bescheiden replied.
“I meant was it in the water or out of the water?” There was a strict jurisdictional distinction between crimes committed on the water and those not. The former were known as wet crimes and got handled by the River Watch, while the latter-dry crimes-were the Black Caps’ responsibility. If at least half the elf’s body had been in the Bruynwarr when first discovered, Kurt and his men could avoid the thankless task of trying to find out who had dared to kill the victim.
Bescheiden shook his head. “Sorry, captain-he only had one foot in the water.” Kurt spat out a curse so vile it made his watchman take a step backwards. Bescheiden grinned. “And you thought you had trouble before, eh? The commander’s cronies will be all over this like Fen Loonies on a boatload of lost travellers.”
“Sounds like you need some help,” a familiar voice boomed from behind Kurt. He turned to see Jan strolling towards him, wearing the black cap of a watchman. The rest of his garb was not so well fitting, the tunic straining to encompass Jan’s broad chest and broader belly. Kurt couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his friend, back in uniform once more. He embraced Jan warmly, clapping him on the back.
“I thought you were retired?”
Jan shrugged. “Much as I love drinking in the Dancing Pirate, the company of halflings and half-wits is not enough to pass the time, even for someone so easily amused as me. Besides, we’ve all got to die of something, yes? It might as well be stopping you getting yourself killed.”
“None of my men are getting killed on Three Penny Bridge,” Kurt vowed.
A shadow passed over Jan’s face. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” He noticed the craven presence of Bescheiden lurking nearby. “This one of your men, is it?”
Kurt nodded and rolled his eyes. “Wait until you meet the rest.”
Jan laughed. “Nothing’s ever easy with you, is it Kurt? Or should I call you sir now?”
“Captain will do fine.”
“Captain it is. Now, what’s this I hear about a murdered elf on your territory?”
“How did you-” Bescheiden began.
“Don’t even bother asking,” Kurt said, cutting him short. “Sergeant Woxholt has the best network of informants in all of Marienburg, isn’t that right?”
Jan shrugged. “Live here long enough, you know everything and everyone. What’s first, captain?”
“Bescheiden, I want you to find Gerta Gestehen and bring her to the station-she may have seen who killed the elf, or at least witnessed the body being dumped.” The small man nodded and hurried away.
“You can’t trust a word she says,” Jan warned.
“Perhaps not, but if she does know anything about the murderer, that makes her a target too. The dead elf can wait for the moment-barring a miracle cure or magical intervention, I doubt he’s going anywhere anytime soon,” Kurt said. “We need to reclaim our station before we start solving murders.” Martin Faulheit was one of the laziest men in Marienburg. He had joined the Black Caps because it seemed to offer the best pay for the least amount
of work or responsibility. He had slouched from one station to another, doing just enough to keep his uniform but never any more. Asked to work a moment longer than his shift and it was probably more than Faulheit’s job was worth. Ask him to risk danger, dismemberment or death, and that was definitely more than his job was worth. His apathetic attitude extended to his personal appearance too: receding hair scraped over a balding pate with a handful of goose grease, a paunch built by excesses of eating and ale that slumped over the waist-belt of his rarely washed uniform, and breath that stank worse than any canal at low tide, because he couldn’t be bothered to clean his teeth. The sole reason Faulheit sported a beard and moustache was it saved him the effort of shaving. He wasn’t actively corrupt-he wasn’t actively anything, except lazy-but Faulheit was willing to take a bribe if it saved him from having to arrest anyone or put himself in any danger.
In all his time with the Black Caps, only one man had ever managed to frighten Faulheit into an honest day’s work. When that man appeared on Three Penny Bridge with the new captain, the pair of them acting like old friends, Faulheit felt his heart sinking lower than any catacomb in the city. “Taal’s teeth!” he hissed, panic spreading across his ugly features. “Not him! Not here!”
Raufbold was preening nearby, but still noticed the consternation. “What’s the matter?”
